TO BAYARD TAYLOR
II
At set of sun one lone star rules the skies,
Night spreads a feast the day's long toil has won:
Eat, drink,—enough, no more,—and speak, ye wise,
Speak—but enough, no more, at set of sun!
Sunset Club, 1891.
ON WHITE CARNATIONS GIVEN ME FOR MY BIRTHDAY
Exquisite tufts of perfume and of light,
Fair gift of Summer unto Autumn borne,
Were but the years ye calendar as white,
As sweet, as you, Age could not be forlorn.
Yet, beauteous symbols of my only gain—
Love, portioned from your givers' envied share,
Honor, whose laurel at their feet hath lain—
Make me this night of Life's waste unaware!
October 8, 1894.
TO BAYARD TAYLOR
WITH A COPY OF THE ILIAD
Bayard, awaken not this music strong,
While round thy home the indolent sweet breeze
Floats lightly as the summer breath of seas
O'er which Ulysses heard the Sirens' song.
Dreams of low-lying isles to June belong,
And Circe holds us in her haunts of ease;
But later, when these high ancestral trees
Are sere, and such melodious languors wrong
The reddening strength of the autumnal year,
Yield to heroic words thy ear and eye;—
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